I am a HUGE google supporter.

I’ve been using google since search was search on the internet.

As of today…… I think that might be changing……. maybe

Bing is Microsoft’s version of Google and I must say; “I don’t hate it”

Do a search in bing on a baseball, basketball, hockey player and then do the same search in google. I think you will like what you see.

Now, do I think for one second that this is the “google killer.” Oh please no.
Google is still number one, its just nice to know that I have search options.

Thats right ladies and gents, Windows Vista is already being scrapped and being replaced with Windows Se7en.
(kind of like how Windows XP replaced Windows Millennium because we all know how BRUTAL Millennium was!!)
Now, I am a few of the people that actually enjoy my Vista experiance and I must say, from what I have heard about the latest, Windows Se7en, I cannot wait to get my hands on it.

Check Gizmodo to see an indepth overview of its first release.

In recap, I can break down some of the pros and cons:

PROS
Takes less resources; meaning that the machine you currently own that is running Vista sluggishly (or XP for that matter) can and will Windows Se7en without any hick-ups (or so they say).

Back to the basics. I found that Microsoft added too much un-needed fluff to your computing experiance. From what I see, things will be alot simpler.

CONS

Since I haven’t gotten my hands on a copy (beta testing here I come!) I cannot present any software compaints (although they are sure to follow).

I hear that this “upgrade” to Windows Se7en isn’t actually an upgrade but a new Operating System all togetrher. Translation: You have to buy this new product.

This is infuriating on many levels and I will say that it would be a HUGE mistake not to offer the operating system at a discounted price if, in fact, you actually own a Vista(s) product.

Other than that, I am excited to see what is in store for the Microsoft future. Alot of anti-microsoft critics are now asking “where is Apple with all of this?” It appeas Microsoft is taking leaps and bounds with Se7en.

I love Hard Drive space. Currently I own 750 gig of space on my computer at home (I really need to RAID it sometime)

What I love the most about hard drives right now is the price. It is SO cheap to buy storage. Not like when I first started using computers, it was SO expensive!

So I present to you, some uselss facts about Hard Drives that only nerdy people would even care for.

Enjoy!

• The magnetic HDD is 50 years old. In 1956 IBM introduced 305 RAMAC, which is like the great-great-great grandfather of today’s disks. It was the size of a refrigerator, and stored a total of 4.4 megabytes (about 1 MP3). It had a purchase price of $10,000,000 per Gbyte.

• Today’s laptop drives are typically 2.5 inches and are a size of a deck of cards, and can store up to 160 gigabytes – or 131 billion bits per square inch. Price is less than $1 per gigabyte.

• Consumers bought 739.7 million gigabytes of hard-drive storage space last year. That is 11 times what they bought in 2003. (NYT)

• In the U.S. alone, $600 million worth of external hard drives were sold in 2006, up 53% from 2005, The NPD Group, a market research firm, says. (NYT)

• External hard drive prices declined 28.4% from $197 in 2003 to $141 in 2006 and the amount of storage space on the drives doubled.(NYT)

• Per Gigabyte retail price of hard disk drive storage in 2003 was $2.04, but in 2006 it was 77 cents, according to The NPD Group.

• The recording density for data — aka capacity — has increased 60,000,000-fold in 50 years.

• The amount of worldwide information is projected to grow from 161 exabytes in 2006 to 988 exabytes in 2010. An Exabyte is a million terabytes.(WWD)

• By 2010, the total amount of data will overwhelm the total amount of digital storage by a factor of nearly 2 to 1. 2007 is the year that our ability to stuff bits into the digital universe will outstrip our ability to store them.(WWD)

Here’s the a list of 13 Places To Watch TV For Free Online:

1. FreeTube (completely free alternative to cable television that lets you watch tv channels and TV shows online using just your browser.)

2. Hiveproductions (lists shoutcast tv streams.)

3. Tape it off the Internet (Over 2,000+ TV shows or 90,000+ episodes, including all the big shows like Lost, Prison Break, etc)

4. Streamic (More then 300 real TV channels to choose from including NBC, ABC, ESPN, BBC1 and many more, organized in categories and ranked by the site users)

5. TVlinks (A directory that amalgamates the most popular tv shows, cartoon & anime series.)

6. PPStream (Sports, movies – all in one please. Just choose a show from the list of available channels)

7. ABC (Watch popular shows like Lost, Desperate Houswives, Alias etc online)

8. PeekVid (Over 700 episodes of popular shows such as 24, Buffy, Desperate Housewives, Family Guy. Shows can be downloaded)

9. PPlive (a popular service for watching many foreign channels)

10. TV-Video (All the latest TV shows as they aired including 24, Smallville, Prison Break, Lost etc)

11. TVU Player (TVU is a nifty little player that offers users a variety of channels that can be used to watch normal TV or Sport. US channels are also found on this player.)

I’m not going to tell you that a PC or Microsoft hasn’t pissed me off in the past, but thats not to say I am about to jump ship.

Apple brings out these comercials making out their prodcut is the best thing since sliced bread. Personally I think if your product sales pitch is that a Mac matches your personally then you dont have a personality. If a machine has to define you…… enough said.

You have seen the ads – you know the ones where PC is represented by a nerdy looking middle aged man and MAC is represented by a hip young man.

Some famous ads is when PC has the flu and reports that there are 150,000 viruses for the PC and MAC comforts PC while saying he doesn’t have to worry about viruses.

Another one shows MAC bragging about how you can flip between either operating system on there Apple platform. 

So while everyone is running around claiming that the death of Microsoft is soon upon them because MAC/Apple is taking over – let’s put some things into perspective.

Viruses. 

Are a pain in the ass and yes Microsoft having lots of them is also a pain.  Apple doesn’t.  Let’s recap why this is.  As I look around my office there is a PC on every desk running Microsoft and its products.  I don’t see a Mac anywhere (even in the design department).  So if I am a virus creator and the purpose of my virus writing is to effect peoples productivity, wouldn’t I want to effect something that will make an impact?  Let’s say 98% of the worlds PCs or 2% of Macs?  Not a hard decision.

Microsoft runs on MACS.

Yes, this is true and it’s a fantastic feature.  Let’s put something into perspective:  Microsoft creates software, not hardware.  So if I own a MAC (and its software) and then I want Microsoft windows and office as well, I have to purchase them also.  So how is that bad for Microsoft?  They are selling their product on MAC platforms.  That sounds like a win for Microsoft to me.  You can only put MAC software on MAC computers.  Un-like every other hardware company in the world, they all make hardware for Microsoft.  So Microsoft can be run on any hardware platform in the world and Apple is limited to only MAC computers.

Macs look SWEET.      

That they do, I can’t knock that but here is some more perspective.  Microsoft is a software company.  Aren’t PC’s looking ugly a problem for Dell, Toshiba, Samsung, etc who actually make the hardware?  Isn’t it their problem that their product doesn’t look as nice as the MAC?

Ipod. 

Dominant.  They own the market.  Microsoft is releasing Zune this fall to counter the ipod and I don’t care if this thing is the best product since sliced bread, it wont effect the Ipod market all that much. 

But the last time I checked, Ipods work with Microsoft windows seamlessly (I should know, I own an Ipod).  The reason they do is because Apple knew if the Ipod was going to succeed then it had better work SEAMLESSLY with Microsoft.  Because everyone knows that if you want to make money in computers, you better be buddies with Microsoft.

Once again though, Microsoft is a software company and doesnt need hardware products to sell its software.  Where as in the Apple world the only reason you are seeing so many big ads for MACs or the creation of "iworld" is because the ipod has done so well. 

 Nerdy middle aged guy Vs Young hip guy.

Apple makes photo and video seamless.  Microsoft has the same products but using these products is a bit more complicated (so I have been told). 

The last time I checked though, computers are tools.  Tools complete tasks.  Using tools and completing tasks is all about business.  Enter Microsoft.  As much as Apple wants to dream about taking over the business market someday, the truth is, they have about the same chance of that happening as open source Linux does.

And in the commercials.  The young hip guy looks like a run down college student.  When I went to college it was to get educated to make money not to continue looking like a dumpy college kid. 

Lets face it, if your in business, your in Microsoft. 

With Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 and Mozilla’s Firefox 2.0 web browser both releasing updates within days of each other, a true head-to-head comparison is finally possible.  What’s at stake?  A lot will argue money (that’s a gimmy) but more importantly – braggin rights!    

With most things in life (especially computers) either you love one style and hate the other.  Unfortunately Internet Explorer endures a special kind of comparison since Internet Explorer (IE) is the default browser installed on your PC.  You don’t get the opportunity to like one or hate the other because you don’t get the option to.  Back in the beginning of commercial internet you had the choice of Netscape or IE and even though IE went about with a lowball approach to gain market share; I believe the better of the two internet explorers came out on top.  Unfortunately that left IE on top for a LONG TIME with no real competition.  That was until we started getting some serious dissatisfaction with the IE product.  FireFox is born.

FireFox exists to bring what IE isn’t.  FireFox is only alive because IE couldn’t keep the masses happy. 

Now when Firefox first jumped on the scene, I was skeptical.  I have seen software companies claim to be the new best thing and in 6 months you never hear about them again.  That wasn’t the case here.  I installed it and I felt really wrong about using it (like I was betraying my family or something.)  I am a die hard Microsoft user but credit has to be given where credit is due and the truth is – firefox is a better product. 

Microsoft just recently released IE 7 which is a HUGE improvement on IE 6 (which we have all fallen in disapproval of) but even with its mimicked look and features of Firefox, it’s still lacking.

Even with its flaws, IE is the dominant choice of Internet browser and probably will continue to be as long as everyone uses Microsoft operating systems.  If anything, this is a win-win for Microsoft. They will continue to mimic other great software products (like Firefox and the Mac OS) and incorporate it into their own suite. 

So once again – Microsoft rocks.